The Ring Оf Fire. The Wolf Bell

Part One: The Bell

ONE

In the early days of Ere wolves came down from the high deserts to raid the Zandourian sheep, slaughtering them or driving the animals up a sheer cliff to climb in terror or fall to their deaths. The Zandourian herders thought the wolves devils from the fires of Urdd itself and, helpless in their fear, turned to the Seers of Zandour. So the Seer NiMarn fashioned a bell of bronze held by a rearing bitch-wolf; with it, a man gifted in Seeing could call the wolves as a mother calls her babe, and they would come grovelling. After that wolves left the herds untouched and became slaves to the Seers of Zandour.

But with the bell and its dark powers, NiMarn ruled more than wolves. He ruled the cities of Zandour as well. The wolf cult held reign for five generations, until the volcanoes spewed fire and devastation across the lands of Ere. In the panic of sweeping rivers of fire, smoke-darkened skies and starvation, the wolf cult could not hold men. The cult crumbled, the wolves returned to the wind, and the bell was lost.

As the last leader of the wolf cult lay dying deep in the cave that would be his grave, he whispered a prediction that lived in that cave long after his bones had crumbled:

“A bastard child will be born, and he will rule the wolves as no Seer before him has done.” His words were rasping and hate-filled, his sunken eyes cold with seeing his own betrayal. “A bastard child fathered by a Pellian bearing the last blood of the wolf cult. My blood! My blood seeping down generations hence from some bastard I sired and do not even know exists!

“A child born of a girl with the blood of Seers in her veins. A child that will go among the great wolves of the high mountains, where the lakes are made of fire. Wolves,” he whispered, shivering, “that are more than wolves. And that boy will seek a power greater even than the wolf bell, a power that even I could not master.” Bile came into the Seer’s mouth. He died with a look of cold fury on his thin face, and his bones rotted there in the cave of the wolf cult and he was forgotten for seven generations.

The volcanoes came once again. The lands were swept by fire. Men died and women became barren, and the few children born, it was said, were touched with evil. As the fires subsided, a girl-child was born in Zandour. She who would be mother to the bastard.

In those days a maid was chattel like the beasts, purchased at puberty for wifely work and breeding. When Tayba was thirteen her father took bids for her. She was tall and dark with teasing eyes and a beauty men watched with fine lust and bid high for. The bidders were wealthy young men whose fathers’ herds blanketed the hills of Zandour and whose mounts and jewels were envied. Seven bidders, then twelve, each going higher until Elgend chose the most generous, chose jewels and gold worth a kingdom. So young Blerdlo was given the promise of Tayba; and if he was gross and fat-gutted and smelled bad, that was not considered, was of no consequence in these dealings. Elgend had done well enough with his other daughters; now Tayba would double his fortunes. And if she bore a healthy child, Blerdlo promised a bonus of such splendor that Elgend found the customary long wait for the wedding celebration nearly as difficult as did Blerdlo.

Tayba allowed her father’s wives to give her the final training for marriage. She was silent and yielding to the prenuptial rituals and the Worshippings. She knelt docilely before the gods—and burned inside at gods who would allow her sale to that pig, Blerdlo, seethed hot with fury at the promising and vowed she would never honor it. Alone in her chambers, standing before her silver mirror, she mourned the betrayal of her own cool beauty, mourned the handsome young men who had wanted, and lost, her. Well she would not be wasted on Blerdlo; she might prepare for her wedding bed, but she would not lie in it with him.

There was a fair young man in Zandour then, an unlanded drifter from Pelli lounging in the ale houses and gaming places. The servants said he was clever at bones and brittles and that he must be wealthy indeed, the way he used silver to satisfy his wants. Tayba managed many a trip to the marketplace, to the herb woman and the prayer fountain in preparation for her marriage. The young man began to watch her. He was sun-browned with pale gold hair, his eyes so compelling she found it hard to look away. When first he spoke to her, she looked down, letting her lashes brush her cheeks. She could feel his interest like a tide. She turned away, smiling a little. Soon they were meeting in the public places, then later in places where prying eyes would not follow. In Tayba’s father’s farthest sheepfold shelter, in the ogre’s wood where few from Zandour ventured. Then at last in the blackened caves of Scar Mountain that rose between Zandour and Aybil.

He made love to her greedily. But when she tried to ease him into promises, EnDwyl did not commit himself. He let her imagine what she might. He watched her passion for him grow and was satisfied.

Soon Tayba was with child. The illness of it made her pale and so queasy she could not sit at table, but the wives put it down to nerves. She stayed to herself in her room until the early sickness was past. Her tall, lithe frame carried the secret well. After the first weeks of sickness she felt strong again and continued to slip away to EnDwyl. The gowns she chose were flowing, they showed nothing.

She was growing heavy the evening she put on a smooth, revealing gown at last and stood before her father’s table to stare at him in cold defiance, the evidence of her betrayal mocking him. All up and down the length of the room there was silence, then a faint gasp from the wives who would be blamed for this: five days before the wedding and Tayba pregnant as a prize ewe.

Her father stared at her, the blood draining from his face. He rose, white as loess dust, and stepped toward her. “Is it Blerdlo’s?”

She gave him a cold smile and shook her head. His hand went to his skinning knife, and someone muffled a cry. She did not back away.

“You cursed . . . you worthless. . . . You’ve squandered a fortune with your willful ways! You’d have been bred soon enough to Blerdlo, but you couldn’t wait. You—”

Her eyes flashed. “You sold me to that pig, to the ugliest, the smelliest among them! Well he’ll never have me, and I’m as worthless to you now as a rotting sheep’s carcass. You could get a better price from a servant’s whelp!” Her smile was ruthless with the success of her revenge.

“Get out! Go with your unlanded lover and see how well he keeps you! You’re no longer welcome in this house!” He slammed out of the room, and she looked after him with triumph, stared slowly around the table then, keeping her face hard, and went away with the cold looks of the household at her back.

She snatched up a few clothes, took a handful of silver from her father’s stores before he thought to lock them, and ran barefoot through the night to the house where EnDwyl hired a sleeping room. She was drunk with her own freedom, giddy with her revenge. They would go to Pelli now, they would . . . But EnDwyl was gone, his room quite empty of anything that had ever belonged to him.

She stood staring at the bare room, sick with shock. All his clothes, his boots, everything. When she went to rouse the innsman to find out where, he stood in his doorway swearing. “I know he’s gone! And taken his horse and two roast ducks and a cask of ale as well and left nothing for the rent he owes!” He eyed Tayba speculatively, seeing her silk gown, the fur lining of her cloak.

She turned and left in haste, losing herself in shadow. The man wouldn’t get EnDwyl’s rent out of her.

She stood for a long while in the night-shuttered marketplace, near the fountain, swept by rage—and by a sudden cold fear. Her time was not far off. She had no desire to drop the babe on the open hills like a dumb ewe. She had counted on EnDwyl to take her to Pelli to bear his child. He had said he would. Well, at least he had said—what had he said? In the heat of temper she could not exactly remember. Tears of self-pity came, she did not try to quench them, stood tasting the salt on her lips in terrible rage, then bent, shaken with a hard bout of sobs that seemed to ease the anger.

When she looked up from crying at last, she saw an old woman standing in the starlit square near the fountain, watching her. A short, dumpy figure, a woman such as was seen rummaging in the gutters of Zandour. The woman’s voice was hollow as the night She said cruelly, “EnDwyl has ridden toward Pelli, wanting to be free of you.”

Tayba looked her over. “How would you know such a thing?”

“It is my business to know. And I have a message for you. You must go to the bell woman on Scar Mountain. She will help you. She says to bring honey and sow’s milk. You take the fourth path at the turning by the water cave and keep on until the sun has set.”

“The sun has not even risen,” Tayba said irritably. “And why should I go to Scar Mountain?”

‘To bear your child in safety. He was conceived on Scar Mountain, and on Scar Mountain he will be born.” The old woman turned away, then cast back softly, “It will be light soon. You’d better hurry. And don’t forget the sow’s milk and honey.” She was lost at once in the city’s depths. Tayba stared after her outraged. She wished she’d been born a man; she looked down at her swollen belly and wished she were lithe enough to ride hard and strong enough to kill EnDwyl. She wished for the first, but not the last, time that this creature she carried was gone, even wished the baby dead and herself free of the whole matter.

The morning dawned foggy and cold. Shivering, she pulled her cloak around her and stared up at the craggy mountain. She did not know where else to go or what to do. She left town at last, angry at everything, at EnDwyl, the old woman, the gods—and very hungry. She purchased sow’s milk and honey from a hillside farm wondering why she bothered, and some dry mawzee cakes to eat as she made her way up the rough path that cleaved around Scar Mountain.

The way up the mountain had been exciting when she rode behind EnDwyl. Now it was hostile and rough and seemed a good deal longer. When at last the morning mist blew away, the day became hot, the air heavy, and the path very steep indeed. She hadn’t remembered how steep. She put on sandals, but the thin soles were little help against the sharp rocks. Her bundles grew heavier, and the sow’s milk began to smell. She thought of her last ride here with EnDwyl, and she hoped a warring Herebian tribe would chop him into buzzard bait.

But when she passed the cave where they had lain, she mourned EnDwyl’s golden hair and knowing ways. Why had the gods let this happen? Why had they let him leave her? She stared up at the sky. If she had seen gods then, flying on the wind, she would have cursed them roundly.

How had that old woman in the square known about her and EnDwyl? And how had this bell woman known? She had never even heard of a bell woman—bells? What did she do with bells? And what made her think the baby would be a boy? I don’t want a boy! I don’t want any baby! What am I to do with a baby!

When the sun had set she stood before a house made of stone slabs set against the side of the mountain. The afternoon had grown chill. She could see firelight through the cracks around the shuttered window. The door stood ajar. Tayba entered.

The stone ceiling rose high. The house was large inside, carven deep into the mountain itself; and the pale stone walls were sculptured into shelves on which stood bells, hundreds and hundred of bells catching the firelight, bells of amethyst and brass and painted clay, of jasper and of precious glass stained in deep tones. A thin white-haired woman sat folded onto a stool before the hearth. She watched Tayba silently. It was impossible to tell her age. Her eyes were too wise, too full of knowledge. She didn’t need to speak to make Tayba feel so uncomfortable she turned away to stare with confusion around the stone room. Why had she come here? Why in Urdd had she come?

The evening light fell softly through the window to catch at the bells. Did they carry enchantments? There was nowhere else to look except at bells, or at the white-haired woman. Then she saw a bronze bell standing alone on the mantle, and a chill touched her. It was an ugly thing: a rearing bitch-wolf holding a bell in its mouth. She did not know why it terrified her, but she looked away from it, shuddering. She thought of the child she carried and stared at the woman sitting motionless against the stone mantle. Something dark in Tayba stirred then, some hint of things unspoken, things she did not want to touch or acknowledge, and she pushed them away from her mind in angry haste. The woman spoke.

“I am Gredillon.” Her voice was clear, precise. “I am called bell woman.” Her white hair seemed not to denote age so much as some strange condition of being. She looked long at Tayba, a detached, appraising look that did nothing at all to ease Tayba’s awe of her. Did the woman always have that piercing, unnerving gaze? “You will bear your child here.”

Tayba continued to stare.

“I will teach him what he needs to learn. I will teach you both, likely, for you are in desperate need of learning.”

Tayba scowled.

“And one day he will lead you, this child you carry. One day he will lead men.”

“No child will lead me! I do not even want this child!”

“Nonetheless, he will be born. And he will lead you into the Ring of Fire, and there you will find what you are made of. It is something you need badly to learn.”

“No one goes into the Ring of Fire. And how do you know what I need?”

“You will go there,” Gredillon said, ignoring Tayba’s question. “Your brother Theel went, as far as the foot of it. Is it not true he followed the raider Venniver to the foot of those mountains to build a new city?”

“I suppose so. It’s what he said. Who knows where Theel is.”

“If he followed the dark leader Venniver, he did as he said he would do.”

“If he followed Venniver to that place, he’s probably dead.” She laid her pack on the table. “Why did you bring me here?” Then, remembering the sow’s milk and honey that she had set down absently, “And why did you want those? Do you expect me to drink sow’s milk, old woman?”

Gredillon’s smile was unexpected. It softened her angled face. “The sow’s milk makes good cheese. The honey is to sweeten my tea.” Her mouth twitched with amusement, but her dark eyes flashed. “Honey will not be wasted on you, young woman! It would turn bitter as dolba root in your mouth!”

“Why did you bring me here?”

“I did not bring you. I offered you sanctuary. Without me you would have had to return to your father’s house and beg a herder’s shack in which to bear your child.”

“You bid me here,” Tayba argued. “You told that gutter woman—what do you want of me?”

“I want nothing of you. I want only the safety of the child you carry. I want the safe birthing of your son.” Gredillon rose and turned to the mantle so the bronze bell was cloaked in her shadow. When she turned back to face Tayba, her eyes were so fierce Tayba could hardly look. “I want him born safely, and you know nothing of birthing a child. You could die birthing this child and he could die with you. You are too young, they breed them too young. That is why the young women die, it is not from the will of the gods.” She clasped her hands lightly. “This child must be born in safety, and you must live to care for him. But mark you this. If I must choose between you, one life to save, I will save the boy.” She motioned to a low couch on the other side of the hearth. “You are too weary to contain such anger. Lie down now and sleep.”

Tayba felt the weariness then, like a tide. She did as she was bidden, though against her will, turned her face to the wall away from Gredillon and, against her will, slept at once. And in sleep the wolf bell burned darkly through the weft of her dreams, the bitch-wolf rearing tall, her mouth open in a toothy leer.

*

She birthed the child with Gredillon’s help as Ere’s two moons hung thin as knives low on the horizon, birthed painfully through the length of the night with the pains so white hot she thought she would die of them. She heard Gredillon’s words over and over, If I must choose between you, I will save the boy. Tayba hated the baby for this and for the pain he caused her, wanted only to be free of him, fought to be free of him. When she screamed with the pain, Gredillon stuffed a rag in her mouth to bite on.

Gredillon’s thin, long hands held an earthen cup to Tayba’s lips with potions, straightened her covers, or removed them when Tayba burned with the heat of her effort. The thin, patient woman was there as the pain came and went; the candlelight caught at her white hair and at the bells, and in delirium Tayba thought the bells were huge and saw Gredillon’s white hair flowing through them and Gredillon’s long hands reaching, reaching. . . .

At last, as morning came with a pale whisper of light across the little window, so came the babe slipping out onto the white goat blanket Gredillon held for him and crying lustily in the bright room. At once Gredillon laid the wolf bell beside him; and at once the baby clutched at it.

Tayba fed him, exhausted and half-gone in sleep, and did not look at the boy well until she woke at midday. Then she saw with shock that he was marked, the mark of the Seer, for he had hair like flame. Hair red as sable-vine. Burning red against the white goat blanket.

Gredillon ignored Tayba’s dismay. “He is a Seer born,” she said triumphantly.

“A Seer born, and marked,” Tayba replied. “It can’t be my blood. I have no blood of Seers.”

“Do you not?” Gredillon looked hard at her, and again Tayba felt discomfort, some knowledge forcing itself into her mind that she did not want there. Angrily she put it away from her.

“And why must he have red hair? Not all Seers are so marked!”

“I grant you, he will be easily known for what he is unless he is disguised. All Seers are not so marked, but all with red hair are surely Seers. Well, we must take care of that when the time comes.” Gredillon raised her face to the slanting light of the westerly sun that flooded the room, then touched the wolf bell that stood now beside the baby’s sapling crib. “What is that sullen look, young woman? You do not know, or even care, what you have borne here. This child—this child and the mystery he seeks may well reshape the history of Ere!” And without consulting Tayba, “You will name him Ramad, Ramad means ‘Of the Mountain,’ and surely this child is of the mountain. He is a love child—a spite child—conceived and born on Scar Mountain.”

Tayba held the baby close to her. Ramad? Ram? It seemed a strange name. She stared at Gredillon. “Who are you? How can you take the liberty even of naming him? What—what do you intend for him? Why should you . . . ?” And suddenly she felt the agony the babe would one day know, born a Seer—born to rule or to be killed by Seers. And she held him and nursed him tenderly then and loved his small, helpless body that curved so easily to her own. But she stared past him to Gredillon. “Who are you?” she repeated.

“Who am I? I come out of Pelli,” Gredillon said, “where the Seers rule so strongly. From this mountain I have watched the Seers of Zandour grow stronger, after generations of weakness. Soon again they will be as strong as the Pelli an Seers. As cold and unbending. One day soon Seers may rule all the coastal countries.” She rose to slice cold meat for Tayba, and new bread, and watched the girl eat as if she had not seen food in days. “There is little love between the Zandourian Seers and the Pellian, but their ways are too much alike for comfort. The simple days on Ere are past, young woman. The days when there were no nations, but only roving tribes with the land between falling to one group then another, then belonging to no one as the volcanoes swept down.

“Even the days when Zandour ruled all the coast clear to Sangur was a simple time compared to what lies ahead. Though those rulers were strong indeed, with the cult they brought upon Ere.” She looked down at Ram. The baby was staring at her intently, as if the sound of her voice stirred him.

“Well, the volcanoes helped end that rule. But now the Seers grow stronger again and begin to band together. All but the Seer of Pelli. He does not band with anyone. He is close in spirit to the old Zandourian rulers—he would take the coast if he could, as Zandour once did. And those Seers who are of goodness will continue to be driven out or killed.” She took the babe from Tayba then. “But this child—mind my words, young woman. This baby will one day help to bring together those Seers who cling to the good. He will, if no evil defeats him, bring a force of great wonder back into Ere, a force that will aid all men of goodness.” She stared at Tayba coldly. “Who am I? I am no one. I am one who cares.” Then she said, as if reluctant to speak of it, “I am of Herebian blood and also of the blood of Seers; the blood of the wild, raiding Herebian tribes that would have raped and murdered everyone in Ere if they could have managed it—and the blood of the Cherban Seers, some of whom hold great good and some of whom lust after evil as surely as the Herebian ever did. Perhaps I feel, because of my mixed blood, a need to see a stop to the evils, a need to help against the darkness.”

Tayba finished her meal in silence and accepted the baby from Gredillon. Too many thoughts crowded her mind. She settled Ram beside her for sleep. This tiny newborn thing—how could Gredillon speak of his changing all of Ere? That was ridiculous. The woman was quite mad. He was only a baby.

But Ram grew into a handsome, sturdy boy, healthy as a young animal, and when he was of an age to learn, Gredillon taught him his letters. Then she taught him the ancient runes of the gods that few men of Ere could decipher. She taught him the myths of Zandour and Aybil and of the coastal countries, and of Carriol and the high desert tribes. She bade Tayba sit at the lessons, though she was an unwilling, fidgeting student who gazed off toward Zandour and thought unruly thoughts. Ramad listened well and was embarrassed by his mother’s inattention, and by the sense of her thoughts that he caught and did not understand.

In time, Gredillon taught young Ram the skills to roam out of his mind into the minds of others, the minds of men down in Zandour, simple men at first whose thoughts were easiest to enter. Ram didn’t like that much. He found the minds of men cruel and unhappy. And the Seeing was never constant, often it would not come at all as was the nature of the art, so that Ram might spend days reaching out in vain. A small boy’s patience, even a small Seer’s patience, has its limits. But Gredillon’s own patience never flagged. She nurtured Ram’s Seer’s skills and built on them. She made him know that his salvation, his very life, lay only in the talents he could master.

She taught him the herbs and the simple potions, too, and taught these to Tayba and made her pay attention. Tayba and her child learned to find and gather and dry the herbs of Scar Mountain, and to use them.

Then Gredillon taught them the sword. She drilled them in mock battles until both Tayba and Ram were near exhaustion; and this practice held Tayba’s attention, pleased her. Then at last Gredillon began to teach Ram the use of the wolf bell, though there was little need to teach him. The boy was drawn to the bell, and quickly he became skilled with it. There were no wolves on Scar Mountain in those days, but soon enough Ram could call down the foxes and jackals. The foxes came slipping close to rub against his legs and eat from his hand, coy and appealing, with pink-tongued smiles that made Ram laugh. But the jackals were sly and ugly. Big, rangy animals, gaunt and slit-eyed, that hung their heads and looked up at Ram menacingly. They frightened Tayba. She went tense while Ram held them with the bell’s power, and when he loosed them they fled and did not hang back to clown as the foxes would.

At these times Ram seemed not a child. Scarce six years of life he had, then seven, but always when he brought the wild animals down to him, the man Ram would one day be shone out, calm and sure. His small boy’s face was filled, then, with light, with a strong intensity that spoke of power—and drew only unease from Tayba. Once when the jackals had fled, she stared after their slinking shadows and said crossly, “Why do you want to call them? They—they make me so uneasy.”

“They are brother to the wolf, Mamen. One day I will call wolves.” He turned away from her to stare out over the mountain, and she pretended she did not see the hurt in his face, see his disappointment in her.

He looked back at last. “One day,” he said, unsmiling, “I think the wolves will save you.”

“How could wolves save me?” But at his words she hastily pushed something away that rose far back in her mind, a picture of wolves leaping, a wild unbidden thought that she did not want, that could not be. There was nothing in her, nothing, that could call forth a vision; she had not the blood for that.

“I don’t know how they will save you, Mamen. But it comes into my mind that one day they will. It is the same as the visions of the gods. I See, but I don’t understand—yet. One day I will understand.”

She looked at him, her hand shaking. “Does—does Gredillon know you have visions of gods?”

“She knows. I see the winged gods. . . .” His eyes were alight now, eager. “They only seem half-horse and half-man, they are nothing like either. They are so beautiful!” The exalted expression in Ram’s dark eyes made her catch her breath. She sat down beside him on the boulder and touched his red curling hair and shivered. She wished—but what good did it do to wish? He was as he was. She could not change that

“I see the gods in the old cities. In Opensa and Carriol and Owdneet,” he said with wonder. “I see how the cities were, the mountains carved with bowers and caves. And, Mamen, men dwelled there with the gods. Seers like me, Seers. . . .” He stared up at the sky. She watched him and knew, bitterly, that he belonged to this more than to her. To this wildness, to the Seeing of gods. He stared past her, puzzling. “The gods dwell in one path of air, and the Seers in another. But they dwell together. I do not fully understand—yet It is like the fish Marga in the sea and the bird Otran in the air. They speak to each other, but each lives in its own world. Only—it is the same world.” He frowned, trying to work it out, looked possessed by this. Why was it so important to him? She wished they had never come to Gredillon, never seen the wolf bell. That bell—and Gredillon’s teachings—led him into worlds she could not touch, made him dream precarious dreams. He would be better off without it, might even be a normal boy and forget he was born a Seer.

He put his arm around her waist, leaned close against her, was so tender suddenly and sweet. She loved the little boy smell of him, his smooth bright hair—but wished it were dark instead of red. She held him close, loving him and wishing to change him.

He took her face in his small hands, was so close his dark eyes were the whole world. “I would not be better off,” he said, reading her thoughts so easily. “I am eight years old, Mamen. If we had not come here, I would be. . . . Without Gredillon to show me, I would not know what is inside of me, or what to do about it.” His whole being had grown fiercely intense. “I do not ask you to change, Mamen. I do not ask you to keep yourself from the trips you make at night down the mountain when you—when you are unhappy. When you think I am sleeping and cannot know.”

Shame rose in her like a tide. She wanted to look away and could not, he held her with his knowing gaze. She saw in his eyes knowledge far beyond a child’s knowledge. “I. . . .” She swallowed and turned away then, and could deny nothing. Could not deny that in the night when her own inner turmoil, when her terrible need became unbearable, she would slip away to follow the dark path down the mountain and go into the drinking halls and go with men into the night. Men who warmed her and made her whole again so she could return quietly, at last, to the mountain.

Gredillon never spoke to her of this. Her disapproving looks the next morning were always quite enough. And now here was Ram confronting her so bluntly she wanted to scream at him.

He hugged her again. “It’s all right, Mamen, I. . .” but he did not finish, stopped abruptly to stare past her, down the mountain. She rose to look, but saw only sky and the empty rock, and Zandour lying like a toy city below.

But Ram saw something, looked cold suddenly, and white.

“What is it? Ram. . . ?”

“A rider is coming. He is maybe two days away. A man—a man riding out of Pelli. A man . ..” He searched her face. “He is a man you know well. A man with yellow hair.”

Her heart leaped. EnDwyl. EnDwyl was coming.

“He is—he is the man who is my sire.”

EnDwyl was coming for her. Coming to, take them away, to care for her. . . .

“No, Mamen. He does not come for you.” He went to stand by some boulders where the land fell abruptly. “He comes to the mountain for me.” He turned to face her. “To take me away to Pelli. He would take me by force to Pelli. The Seer of Pelli has sent him—the dark Seer.” There was growing fear in his eyes. He stood silent for some moments as if listening, then said hesitantly, “They—they would make a ruler of me. Whether or not I want it. I will have no choice in the matter, if EnDwyl finds me.”

“I wouldn’t let him take you. I—”

“What could you do? He is stronger. You—you have no power against this man.” His knuckles were white. “Don’t you understand! The Seers of Pelli are forced to rule, are twisted. Their minds are all twisted. . . .” He stepped so close to the steep drop she gasped, reached to pull him back. He scowled, turning from her. “They need—there is something about me they want. Something besides just that I am a Seer.” He looked puzzled, fearful. “I will not go. And you will not make me go. I will not be their slave so that you—so you can live in comfort, Mamen!”

She stared at him, turning sick at something in herself, at the sudden truth he had touched. “Get Gredillon,” she said coldly. “Go and get her! She is in the field above the garden.”

Gredillon made the plan, took Tayba’s silver and went down the mountain into Zandour, to return the next morning leading a pack pony that bore a small, closed burial coffin on its back, the dirt still clinging.

They carried the coffin up beyond the garden. Gredillon pried up the lid and applied ironroot dye to the hair of the corpse until it shone bright red. Then she closed the coffin and buried it and made a wooden marker. Ram said, “We must hide the pony. The Seer of Pelli saw this place, the house and the garden, has made EnDwyl see it. EnDwyl knows we had no pony when he left Pelli. He will wonder why we do now.”

“We will hide her,” Gredillon said, “inside the mountain, just as you will be hidden.” So they stored dry grasses deep in a cave that opened from inside the stone house, and when EnDwyl was halfway up Scar Mountain, Ram took the pony there, hid in darkness, and Saw in his mind the approach of the man who was his sire.

Tayba stood alone in the doorway watching EnDwyl come around the last turn of the path, his horse sweating from the climb. His cape was gray with the grime of travel, his boots wrinkled and misshapen from long wear. He reined in his mount. The dropping sun touched his pale hair, his ice blue eyes. He watched Tayba intently. His eyes on her upset her, she turned away and busied herself drawing water as she might for any traveler. When she handed the mug up, his look made her remember.

He did not speak, but drained the mug in one swallow. At last he said coldly, “You have a child of me.” His abruptness shocked and hurt her. “He is a Seer born. I have come for him.”

He was so sure of himself, sitting there on the fidgeting mount. “I had a child,” she said quietly. “He is dead. Ram is dead.” She saw his eyes, not believing her, and her temper rose. “And even if he were alive, he—he would not be your property! You deserted us both when I—when. . . .” She dissolved into tears, half with true emotion at her desertion and half with the artful deceit she had practiced, turned away from him weeping and stricken with emotions she could not really sort out.

“You lie! My child is not dead!” He dismounted in one motion and took her by the shoulder. “Dead how? Not my son!”

“He is dead.” Her voice faltered. “My baby—Ramad died on the mountain. He fell from the mountain.”

“You’re lying! The boy was not dead when I left Pelli, the Seer of Pelli saw him. My son was born a Seer. No Seer would fall from a mountain.”

His anger was of such power she could hardly hide her fear. “It is a long ride from Pelli. It is many days ride since any Seer saw Ram alive. Yes, EnDwyl, he would have been a Seer. But a Seer, too, can fall from the mountain.”

EnDwyl hobbled his horse with such haste the animal snorted and reared. He flung past her into the stone house and began to tear it apart in his search, scattering and breaking the frail bells, throwing the bedding on the floor, ripping open cupboards. He found Ram’s small clothes and cast these onto the table. “You keep the clothes of a dead boy?”

“It’s all I have of him! It’s all I have left of him!” She grabbed up Ram’s tunic and trousers and clutched them to her.

“Where is his grave, woman? Where is Ramad’s grave?”

It was then that Gredillon spoke from the doorway, the low sun behind her making her white hair a halo, hiding her face in shadow.

“Can’t you see what you’re doing to her! The girl hasn’t eaten, has been beside herself with grief. I’ve done my best with her, and now you come along and undo it, now she will grieve herself to sickness again.”

“The grave, old woman. Where is my son’s grave?”

“It’s there beyond the herb yard. Past those three outcroppings, by the zayn tree,” Gredillon said angrily.

When EnDwyl had gone Tayba clutched Gredillon’s shoulders. “Will he believe it? He could have heard in the town that you bought a coffin, a body—”

“He did not hear such.”

“But the earth is raw where we buried it, new turned and—”

“The earth is covered with wet leaves, the same as the garden.”

Tayba waited in terror for EnDwyl to return.

And in the dark cave, Ram clung to the pony, his fear of EnDwyl like a sickness as he felt the man’s relentless, evil searching. Clearly, he saw EnDwyl take up a garden spade and unearth the little coffin and open it to examine the wrapped, moldering body. Ram clung to the pony where the animal stood quiet in the unfamiliar dark, and each was comforted by the other. The pony nibbled at his tunic, responding to the child’s soft touch and quick whispers.

In those moments, standing frightened in the darkness, Ram knew his father deeply, and hated him. And he felt Tayba’s fear of the man, and felt her desire for him in spite of fear. And that vision gave the child little comfort

*

EnDwyl left the stone house uncertain in his mind that Ram was dead and unable to find proof that he lived. The cave was well-hidden, Ram and the mare silent in the darkness—though Ram had begun to think he would forget what light was like, would come forth blinded from being so long in darkness. The mare did not eat well of the grasses they had stored, and when Ram led her, blinking, out into the light of Gredillon’s stone room, both were weary from the dark. “He is gone,” Ram said, staring around like a small owl. “It was awful in there. I am hungry for a hot meal.”

Gredillon made a meal for him of tammi tea and boiled roots and a fried rock hare from the snares she set. Then she put Tayba to preparing packs for a journey. At Tayba’s fretful look, she said, “Young woman, there is no help for it. You and Ram must leave this place as quickly as you can. EnDwyl will reach Pelli soon enough, and there he will learn of our lie from the Seer who sent him. He will return at once, and very likely he will bring an apprentice Seer with him—to track Ram. This is not a game. This is Ram’s life in the balance. Don’t you realize what they want of him? They would make a slave of him, would have his soul and leave a thing twisted and cruel as themselves to rule with them—to rule after they are dead. Ram is the tool they need; Ram and the bell he commands. They want . . .” Gredillon paused in folding the blankets and stared absently around the room. “They would rule wolves again. In the old killing ways, when men were torn apart by wolves for transgressions against the masters, and women were. . . .” she glanced at Ram and went silent. They exchanged a long look, then Ram began to eat again, slowly; very pale.

Gredillon put her hand on Tayba’s shoulder. “Ram is not strong enough yet to battle the Pellian Seers. One day he will be. One day, if he works at mastering his skills, he will be stronger than HarThass and all his cold apprentices.”

“No one is stronger than the Pellian Seers,” Tayba said, taking up mountain meat to wrap.

Gredillon ignored her remark. “When Ram is finished eating, get that dye on his hair. Keep it away from his forehead or it will stain.” She was talking to Tayba as if she were a child. “Put the dye in the pack, you will need it. When you reach the river Owdneet, there will be sweet-burrow thickets. You must pick enough to make more. Now give me that pack, young woman, and I will saddle the mare.”

Gredillon balanced the weight of the packs so the pony would travel well. When Tayba and Ram came out, cloaked and ready, she stared at Ram, his hair as dark as Tayba’s. His tanned skin seemed darker, his eyes . . . his eyes looked more like his mother’s now, under the dark thatch. Huge, black as cinders. Before, they had caught golden lights from his tangle of red hair. A dark-haired stranger of a boy. She turned to Tayba, inspecting her critically. “Go to the pump, young woman, and scrub the dye from those hands again—use sand if you must. I’ll wager my kitchen table is a mess.”

Tayba returned at last with clean hands, red and sore from scrubbing. Gredillon said, “You must go quickly over Scar Mountain, quickly down onto the black plain, for you won’t be safe until you are in the city where your brother Theel dwells. And if Theel cannot protect you, you must then go on, up into the Ring of Fire.”

Tayba began to lose patience. What good would it do to go into the Ring of Fire?

“You must prepare yourselves to live on the mountain if need be,” Gredillon said, frowning at her. “Do not fool yourself into thinking that is not possible. It is quite possible. The caves of the old city are there. They may be blocked from easy entrance, and some surely are eaten away by fallen lava, but they are there and safe. And,” Gredillon straightened the bridle, then turned to hold Tayba’s gaze, “the wolves are there. The great wolves. Ram’s power will be greatest among them.” She tightened the girths, then moved to rub the mare’s ears for a moment. “If Theel cannot protect you, the wolves of the mountain will.”

Tayba stared back at her and knew that she was crazy. They could not live among wolves. She said nothing.

Gredillon placed the bell in Ram’s outstretched hands, then pulled the boy to her. Then she turned away toward the cottage to hide tears, and Ram and Tayba started up along Scar Mountain. Ram kept his face turned from Tayba for a long time before he blew his nose and looked ahead.

Quickly they lost sight of the house and garden plot. The way ahead was wild and lonely, and above the first peaks otero birds wheeled and screamed against the wind-driven sky.